Origen’s Point Of No Return ?

Times are dark for Origen as they are about to begin their
second week of the EULCS with Enrique "xPeke" Martinez as their AD
carry. From the depths of the amateur scene to the semi-finals of
the World Championship within the same year; their course has been
spectacular, partly because they had a powerful roster with
multiple veteran players. This split however they lost Alfonso
"Mithy" Rodriguez and Jesper "Zven" Svenningsen; the greatest
western bot lane responsible for holding their team together.
While, at first, some were slightly faithful that Glenn "Hybrid"
Doornenbal and Konstantinos "Forg1ven" Tzortziou will be fitting
substitutes, the first week of LCS didn’t seem like this at
all. In fact, Forg1ven is already unmotivated to the point of
stepping-down from the starting lineup.

Mithy and Zven left Origen because they saw the potential in a
rising G2 roster; fuelled by two exceptional carries, Luka "PerkZ"
Perkvoic and Kim "Trick" Gang-yun. That team won the last LCS
playoffs with a weaker bot lane, so logically they will reach
further with a better one. Some shotcalling and game knowledge from
Mithy himself is also much needed for a “chaos style”
G2. Indeed, the team was successful due to their aggressive and
competent skirmishing and teamfighting, which covered their poor
macro game. If they left however, it is also because they
didn’t believe in Origen. The team failed to make Tristan
"PowerOfEvil" Schrage the same carry as he was on Unicorns of Love.
Paul "sOAZ" Boyer and Maurice "Amazing" Stuckenschneider had
troubles in many of their games and the coaching staff for the team
was questionable to say the least. For all these reasons and maybe
more, it is a very coherent move, yet a sad reality for Origen
fans.

Now that these key players are gone from Origen, what can really
redeem their roster? Even if Forg1ven can mechanically match Zven,
other aspects of his persona make him less desirable. Hybrid, for
his part, is not even close to Mithy, although he will surely have
time to refine his gameplay. Origen did not only lose their bot
lane, they lost their team identity. Even eventually replacing
PowerOfEvil, Amazing or Soaz might not save them anymore. They will
have a difficult task of rebuilding a strong roster, maybe the
hardest goal of any teams this split.

Multiple serious decisions will have to be taken, if the team
keeps sinking. The organisation is young and ambitious, so I have
no doubts about their ability of recovering, but the stakes will be
high and it won’t be achieved anytime soon. Origen are left
without their strongest players a few months before Worlds. They
tried their best to have the most significant roster possible, but
came short to maintain their dominance in a growing league in terms
of new competitors. Swarms of new players are replacing some of the
weakest players while older rosters like ROCCAT and Fnatic are also
improving their team. Since Origen finished in the 4th
place during the previous regular season, I unfortunately expect
them to be even lower this time around.